August 2nd

After a little trial and little more error, I was able to get some decent soles on my clogs.

I used rug backing with about 1/2 a bottle of black paint mixed in, and made the templates from heavy duty cardboard - the sort used for book binding. This stuff is a pain in the (wherever) to cut, so i changed my original Dr. Martins type design for one with minimal turns and curves. I cut it with a dremel, and managed to keep all appendages.

August 1st

Just back from a knitting-free weekend in Barcelona (lots of other fun, though) and I'm feeling a bit dispirited about the clogs. So far I've only managed half of the first one, which seems to have an extra stitch in it somehow, but I'm assuming that I can carry it through and just shrink a bit more when I eventually get round to the felting. The thought of frogging through all that short row shaping and working out where I am on the pattern is just too much.

Am I the only one who hasn't finished the first clog yet? Everyone else seems to be doing so well...

I've been playing with a new 65%/30%/5% Cotton, Wool, nylon yarn for socks, and have been having a heck of a time with it. This is my first attempt to knit with cotton, and i've got a feeling I'm going to have to adjust something, somewhere. Any advice for working with cotton?

I work with dpns for socks, but hope to learn to use circs soon, even two at a time on circs!

OK, I thought that this was going to be easy. My friend Jimmie started to make the Nano cover by Debbie Bliss for his daughter & had problems. I thought, 'Oh plesase, somethning so small can't be that hard.' Wrong.

What is it about bobbles? Why are they so hard? Or what am i/we missing?

Any tips will be very welcome. I've googled & got a few sites but they don't seem to match Debbies instructions.

Behold my latest creation: The Picot-edge Face Mitt!

This was knitted in the round on #4 DPNs using Millefili Fine, the first "pricey" yarn I've ever bought, a souvenir of my June excursion to New York and my first visit to Knit New York, a great knit café with an awesome staff.

...is also a hot seat, at least in this kind of weather. Into the 90s again today, with high humidity and little breeze. Today was the day I promised to judge knit and crochet pieces for the county fair, so off to the fairgrounds at 9 am. Mary, the supervisor, was waiting for me and knew who I was even though we'd never met in person before. Easy, I was the only male judge in her division, Home Economics.

We started with the crochet work, and the only hard judgement call I had was to rank six crocheted afghans. Managed that and wrote suggestions to all the creators. Plowed ahead through several smaller categories, then had to pick best in show for crochet. It went to the best afghan, which was really a nice piece of work.

Hey everyone, I am thrilled to announce that I just finished my very first sacrf! ...I think it turned out pretty well for having basically taught myself.

Needles to say, I have begun yet another scarf (I'll do one more before branching out into something more complicated, any suggestions?). I found that I didn't know what to do with my hands for the three days between projects. I am truly obssesed!

A word of thanks to everyone for thier kind advice, I am finding this site to be a priceless resource!